Author's Note: Thanks for commenting Red Eagle! I will try to update at least once a week so keep reading! And I promise, I have a pretty good plot planned for this ;)
Also, I soon plan on putting art for this story on my deviantart page. There's none there yet (I'm a new member there too) but I'll tell you when there is!
Chapter 3: Back and Forth
"I don't understand this at all." Meiko's head hits the table, crushing the calculus worksheet in front of her. The young woman made a sound like a deflating balloon and Kaito leaned over to try and clarify it to her.
He spewed out a long trail of mathematic terms and sequences and watched as his cousin's eyes glazed over at the nonsensical expressions. "That makes no sense." She finally declared at the end of the explanation. Kaito sighed.
"How did you even get into an Advanced Calculus class anyway?" The girl gave a dramatic shrug and put on an expression of utter maltreatment.
"I have no idea! Someone must have messed up my scheduling!" She looks down at her work, grabs her throat as if choking, and makes very convincing suffocating sounds. "This arithmetic will be the death of me!"
Kaito was not particularly worried about his cousin's approaching passing. Meiko was an actor. She did overdramatic things like this all the time. Ever since they were little she had been a strangely temperamental girl, switching personas every few minutes. It was only when she declared her dream of leading a life in the performing arts that Kaito and her parents stopped treating her as if she had multiple personality disorder.
"Ask the professor about it. Or read a textbook. Anyways I have to go." Class had ended a few minutes ago, but it being the last session of the day students were mingling for a few moments to ask questions and chat.
"What!? Where are you going?" Meiko seemed strangely aghast that he was leaving her to face the horrors of integration and differentiation alone.
Kaito piled his books and such into his bag and swung it over his shoulder. "I have to work on a project."
Meiko pouted at him "Alright…" Bidding her farewell, he strides out of the classroom and makes his way to the library building.
As he thought, the archive of books was mostly devoid of people and silent save for the bubbling from an aquarium. He set his books down at a table and glances around, noting that it was about 3:45 and he had 15 minutes before Miku got there.
Deciding to kill the time with homework, Kaito whips out an English textbook begins studying. He soon finds himself in Meiko's situation; although a wiz at mathematics and sciences, Kaito was not the best at Language Arts. Scratching his head and muttering, he flips through pages of the book, trying to comprehend what the heck a gerund was. He barely heard the soft clank of someone else's books being set down.
He looks up, meeting aquamarine eyes set in a pale face. She glimpses down at his work. He laughs sheepishly. "There you are. I was just studying." He begins to close the book when she slides over a little and looks at the tome more intently.
"Are you having trouble?" She questions. Kaito nods embarrassedly.
"I'm not much of a linguist." Hesitantly the girl reads the page he was on, and raises her eyes to him, another question begging to be spoken. He asks it for her. "Can you explain it?"
She points her finger, and begins. "This book is written badly. It's much simpler than they make it out to be." She gestures to the terms he is trying to grasp. "A gerund is a noun that looks like a verb, and an infinitive is a group of words that act as a noun." Showing him some examples and some exceptions they finally determine that he likes sleeping and hates to ski.
Relieved at finally following the stupidly named verb-tenses, he smiles widely at her to which she gives a smaller, more uneasy grin back. Remembering that there was a purpose other than study help for this meeting, Kaito pulls out his sketches and places them on the tabletop.
"Let's get to work on this…"
After an hour the two of them settled on a basic size for the structure and worked some design flaws out to the point where Kaito could begin calculating a little in preparation for the official blueprint. They planned the slope of the roof and how many pillars there would have to be around the porch as the clock struck five.
As time had gone on, Kaito had noticed that although Miku was certainly not relaxed – he was beginning to think there was no such thing for her – she had seemed to calm down slightly. After a while she wouldn't jump at any of his movements, although her eyes still followed him warily; the library was a success.
"I suppose we had better be wrapping up." He stated, shuffling the papers back into a pile. "I'll get the rest of the mathematics planned and then we should meet up again." She nods, still seeming calm, but as he stands and begins packing up he notices her glancing again and again at the clock and becoming more and more tense.
Looking outside, he notices it has begun to darken and a thought strikes him. Perhaps she is afraid to walk home by herself in the dark? It would make sense; it is dangerous for a young woman to be alone on the streets at night.
"Should I walk you home?" He asks inquiringly. Instantly she whips around and stares at him with wide eyes.
"No!" He takes a step back at her fierce tone. The moment the word comes out however, she seems shrinks back ten sizes and seems horrified at herself. "I'm fine." She quickly grabs her bag and stuffs her things inside it, hands shaking so bad that Kaito can tell she's lying just by looking at her.
He wants to say something, anything, to stop whatever is making her so scared. But the words don't come, he feels as if his vocal chords have been ripped out and the comfort-creating part of his brain shut down. All that's left the problem solving part of his mind.
She was fine until the moment I got up.
What happened?
Did I do something? She did yell at me…
But she was stressed before that…
She doesn't want me to walk her home.
Home?
As she gives a curt and quiet goodbye and strides quickly out the door he puts together an unsettling idea in his head.
She's afraid to go home?
